No Name Needed
by the-lady-luka
Summary: Daria realizes she doesn't fully understand what she feels about Tom... and Trent. And one night at Jane's she comes to an unexpected conclusion.


No Name Needed  
  
Today was already bothering her. Or tonight, as it was so late. Whatever. Usually, Daria prided herself at being very levelheaded. But this.  
  
She'd spent the night at Jane's, which was good except for the fact that she'd found at least two paintbrushes under her sleeping bag the hard way. She'd been in too much pain to bother to count.  
And Jane still teased her about the crush she'd had on Trent, even though she was dating Tom. Daria figured it was either karmic payback, or Jane's style of revenge. Probably both, knowing her luck.  
And now, she'd woken up in the middle of the night, not able to find her glasses and with a desperate need to get to the bathroom. She'd spent five minutes blindly searching through the clutter in Jane's room for them, but still nothing.  
"Well," she whispered to herself, "You're sight isn't that bad. You can make it down the hall and back again."  
She crept out, staying close to the wall. She wasn't worried about waking anyone up. She smirked at the thought. It'd take at lot more than her clumsy self to wake up either of the people in this house. What she was worried about was the junk in the hall that could very easily send her flying.  
She made it into the bathroom with no more than a stubbed toe. A soft curse left her lips when she saw what was on the bathroom counter.  
"What possessed me to leave my glasses in here?" she admonished herself. Now that she was here, though, she didn't seem to need to be.  
"Hmm." She puzzled. "Maybe I'd just remembered my glasses and I'm too tired to distinguish between the two." She glanced at the mirror. There was a large crack in one side, supposedly from an old fight between Penny and Wind. He'd insulted her makeup or something similar, and she'd thrown his portrait of his girlfriend at it. Well, at him, but she'd hit the mirror. Daria tilted her head slightly, noticing that at the point of impact, the cracks looked like a spider web. She couldn't resist the urge to reach out and touch it.  
She traced the patterns with her fingers idly until an unexpected noise caused her to catch her index finger on a ragged piece of glass. She let out a small hiss of pain, then examined it to make sure none of it was stuck in the cut. Satisfied that there wasn't, she began to look for a bandage.  
"Crap." Her search produced nothing. She wrapped the offending finger in a small wad of toilet paper and held it there, hoping the pressure would stop the bleeding soon. Then she noticed the noise that had shocked her hadn't stopped. It was.  
Music? She was instantly intrigued. She walked slowly into the living room, following the noise.  
Her first shocked thought was 'Why is Trent up at this hour?' The next was 'What's he playing?' And the third, though quieter than the others, was the most impacting, 'Why do you care so much?'  
That is over, she reminded herself silently. You are with Tom. TOM. Tom who cares about you.  
Ah, said a small voice, but Trent cares too, you know.  
Not the same way. Tom loves me. Trent's. a friend. A good friend.  
Why don't you believe that?  
I do! I know I do. I think I do.  
She then noticed that Trent had stopped playing. He was facing away from her, and he hadn't turned around, but he knew she was there. He was like that, sometimes.  
"Hey." Was all he said when she began walking towards him again.  
"Hey yourself." She deadpanned. He chuckled softly. She almost grinned. He always seemed to get her humor.  
Don't think that, she told herself.  
After a moment's silence, he started to play again. It was something she didn't recognize. She sat down in a chair across from him, waiting for him to pause.  
He eventually stopped, then looked up at her. She knew that look. It must be a new song, because the look on his face described something she'd felt, though in a different medium: it was the joy of creation, the satisfaction that you've taken an idea and made it real. She knew it well, and it made her grin, too, albeit a smaller one.  
"What's it called?" she asked, letting a little bit of the harshness slip from her voice. She didn't want to, but she began to compare him to Tom. She always felt comfortable around him, a way she could never be with Tom. Tom just didn't get what it was like. What it was that he didn't get, she was never sure. But whatever it was, she knew Trent understood.  
Damn. This is supposed to be over, Daria. You told yourself that it was just a crush. You have to remember that. At least try.  
"Don't know." He said casually. He said it slowly; with him, there was never any rush. "When you have something this good, the kind of thing you just absorb and you're not sure why." he paused, his gray eyes twinkling and his grin widening, "When it's this. until a name comes to you, there's no name needed." He sighed. "Did you understand that?"  
She paused, slowly unwrapping her cut finger. It was still a bright red, but the bleeding had stopped. She had many emotions running through her, and as she stared at the cut, something clicked into place. And then, one of her rare, true smiles played across her face for a moment. It was only a short moment, but he saw it.  
"Yeah." She replied after some thought. Maybe. maybe she did. Maybe, just maybe, she'd come down here on purpose. Maybe he had known she would. Maybe, if you let some things be, if you didn't hold on too tight, and if you didn't look at everything so seriously, everything made sense. Yes. That was it. Everything happens on purpose.  
She looked up at him, and that brief smile had not left her eyes. "Yes, I get it. Something this good doesn't need a name to confine it. Something like that will find its place on its own."  
Trent nodded sagely and began to play his guitar again. She got up, and a silent understanding was reached.  
She walked up the stairs, and when she reached the top, she looked back at him. A small nod of his head, whether in acknowledgement or simply in time to the music she could not tell, met her gaze.  
She began to hum the tune quietly as she lay back down on Jane's floor. She wouldn't figure out what she felt just yet. Maybe not anytime soon. But she would know what she felt eventually.  
And they would know, and wait. And if they didn't, then it wasn't meant to be.  
And it would be okay. She knew that now.  
Something this good, something like this. this was no name needed. 


End file.
